The monitoring of blood glucose concentrations is an essential part of the daily routine of diabetics. The blood glucose concentration generally has to be determined quickly and reliably several times a day in order, if appropriate, to be able to take suitable medical measures. So as not to restrict the diabetic's daily routine any more than is necessary, suitable portable devices are often employed which are intended to be easy to carry around and to operate, such that the blood glucose concentration can be measured, for example, at the workplace or during leisure time.
Various portable devices are presently available on the market, some of them functioning according to different measurement methods. Various diagnostic methods are used in these devices, for example optical or electrochemical measurement methods. For this purpose, it is possible, for example, to use test elements, for example test strips, onto which a suitable sample is applied. An example of such test strips (in this case an electrochemical test strip) is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 5,286,362, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Examples of optical measurement systems are described in document WO 01/48461.
Consumer elements, for example disposable test elements (in particular test strips) thus represent an important element of such measurement systems, in particular of the portable measurement systems. Typically, about 5 to 7 test elements are needed each day by a diabetic. It is essential that the test strips are kept clean and dry, in order to ensure that the measurement of the blood glucose concentration is not rendered inaccurate by contamination or by the action of moisture. The same also applies, for example, to disposable lancets as consumer elements, which also have to be stored in particular in a sterile state.
For this purpose, the consumer elements are usually stored in suitable containers, in order subsequently to be removed from the container by the user and inserted into a suitable analysis device for measurement. Such systems are known from US 2002/0170823 A1, for example, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In some cases, magazine systems are also used to store and dispense the test strips. Examples of such systems are known from US 2003/0116583 A1, U.S. Pat. No. 6,908,008 B2, EP-0 640 393 B1 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,344, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. In these systems, several test strips are stored in a magazine. Moreover, EP 1 488 736 A1, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes a system which, instead of having individual test strips, contains a tape made up of one long test strip with a plurality of test fields.
In addition to measurement systems in which magazine and analysis devices are provided as separate units, integrated systems also exist in which several test strips are not only stored in a magazine, but also at the same time afford the possibility of evaluation of these test strips. Examples of integrated systems of this kind are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,827,899 B2 or in U.S. Pat. No. 6,159,424, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
There are various forms of test element storage in which protection from external influences is provided either by the magazine itself or by the analysis device. In the former case, the magazine itself must have all the means needed for sealing and afford the possibility of opening the seal, and this results in relatively complex and therefore expensive magazines. An example of such a system is the tape cassette system described in EP 1 488 736 A1, or also systems with sealed films.
In the second case described, in which the sealing is afforded by the analysis device, the analysis device needs to have a sealed chamber that has to be able to be opened by the user when changing the magazine and to be closed again in a sealed manner. U.S. Pat. No. 6,827,899 B2 discloses an example of such a system. A disadvantage of such systems, however, is either that they are technically very complicated or that they have a relatively large seal, which is easily accessed by the user and whose function can therefore be impaired by incorrect use or by inadequate care or cleanliness. Moreover, many of the stated sealing principles, including the principle described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,827,899 B2 for example, do not permit exchange of a magazine, with the result that, after the test elements have been used up, the entire system has to be replaced.
In view of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is therefore to provide a measurement system that at least largely avoids the above-described disadvantages of the prior art. In particular, embodiments of a measurement system according to the present invention are intended to include, in addition to an analysis device, at least one magazine that is exchangeable and that can be easily and quickly connected to the analysis device in a sealed manner.